"Why?" asked Dougal, but he was already scanning the slick rock wall ahead of him. It would be difficult to climb without a belaying rope, but not impossible.
"Why Clagg and the Ebonhawke guards?" said Riona. "I wanted to get rid of our unwanted allies. This was supposed to be a private party. I thought you and I could pull this off without them, and if you were of a like mind, we could take the Claw for ourselves. From what I knew of you, I thought you could be… convinced, as long as the others weren't around. But instead of reducing our menagerie, I ended up increasing it. Telling Clagg resulted in the oaf Gullik joining us, and we had to take the rat asura with us after he got us out of Ebonhawke."
"And the guards in the sewers?" said Dougal, thinking of the horror they had both felt killing other guards.
"A sad accident," said Riona, her voice wavering. "I had planted myself on the parapet to wait for the guards, but you and that vegetable got there first. No, they were just doing their jobs, like the charr patrol."
"You can't take the Claw back to Ebonhawke," said Dougal, and moved slowly along the ledge, toward the wall and out of Riona's view.
"Stay where I can see you, or I am gone," said Riona, and Dougal moved back. "You're right. That was my original plan when I first received my orders from Almorra to enlist you to find the Claw. I thought it my chance to return to Ebonhawke as a hero as opposed to someone who aided deserters. But after we talked on the wall, I realized you were right. The charr would stop at nothing if they knew. No, I could not give the Claw to Ebonhawke, or to Almorra."
"Then what are you going to do with it?" said Dougal, looking around. Perhaps if he could grab a rock, he might be able to stun her at a distance. It seemed a pitiful chance.
"The Flame Legion," said Riona brightly now. "I'm going to give it to the Flame Legion."
"What?" Dougal almost shouted.
"Think of it, Dougal," said Riona. "If the Flame Legion gained the Claw, there would be a civil war. The charr women, like Ember, would rebel at once, but there would be enough of those charr in the other legions who would follow a new Khan-Ur to schism the legions. The charr would collapse in a civil war, and we could break the siege, pitting one side against the other. The humans would be able to retake Ascalon. We would be able to retake Ascalon!"
Dougal's mind raced, and he said, "So you caught that Flame Legion soldier after all."
"And made a deal," said Riona.
"The others trusted you," said Dougal. "Killeen, Kranxx, Gullik, even Ember."
"Why should we care? They're not even human," Riona scoffed at him. "I'm a true daughter of Ebonhawke. You should be a true son. You know what happens to Ebonhawke if the queen and this truce faction manage to forge some kind of agreement? We lose. It's only a matter of time before the charr betray us and Ebonhawke falls."
Dougal gawked at her. "I trusted you too. You helped me believe."
"I thought I trusted you," said Riona. "I really did. I thought you were smart enough to see how things were. Everything I knew about you, from when you and the others deserted me, told me I could convince you. But no, you are still haunted by your late wife. Wife! When you told me, I knew it would be near impossible to convince you: you're still in love with a dead woman. That's why you really came here, isn't it?"
"We can talk," said Dougal, mentally planning handholds on the slick wall. He set down the bag of platinum coins. It would just slow him down.
"We can't," said Riona. "When I was attacked by ghosts, you called out her name, not mine. You still love her, Dougal. You came here to find her. And now I'm leaving you with her. Both of you can remain together in death."
Riona laughed, but her laugh turned into a scream of pain and surprise. Her silhouette disappeared from the top of the pit. There was a feral growl and the clash of metal on metal.
Dougal ran to the base of the wall and started climbing. He did not know if he could make it in time or what he would do once he reached the top.
But he knew one thing. Ember Doomforge was still alive.
Dougal dug his fingers into the wall and climbed faster and faster. To keep from slipping, he stabbed his fingers into the crumbling masonry over and over again. He scraped his hands raw forcing handholds in his race to reach the top.
He could hear Ember clearly now: "Traitor!" she bellowed, and there was the clash of metal again. Dougal redoubled his effort.
Dougal clawed his way to the top of the pit in time to see Riona standing, facing the charr. Parts of her bright armor had been ripped away, and she had claw marks along her exposed arms. Ember was worse off: her heavy blade was knocked aside and she clutched her bleeding midsection, struggling to hold her insides together.
As Dougal watched, Ember managed a curse, spitting blood, and dropped to her knees, then fell forward. Dougal climbed over the edge and rose to his feet as a nasty grin split Riona's face. "It always makes me so happy to see a charr die."
Dougal's ebony blade sprang from its sheath, and he held it before him, his raw fingers smearing its hilt. "Don't make me hurt you, Riona," he said. "Just give me the Claw."
Riona wheeled, surprised by Dougal's appearance. As he watched, her expression turned from rage to a softness. "Dougal," she said, "I misread you. You have much more determination than even I suspected. I'm sorry I left you down there." She did not lower the Claw, but moved to her right. Dougal stepped away from the edge of the pit and circled her.
"This is your chance, Dougal," said Riona. "We go our separate ways. You go back to Divinity's Reach or Lion's Arch or wherever. You survived Ascalon City-twice. You have gems and gold to prove it. And while the charr legions tear each other apart, you can just wait for the dust to settle and for the humans to come back. All you have to do is walk away."
"I'm afraid I can't do that," said Dougal. "You know that."
Riona came at him, whipping the ungue around as she charged. Dougal realized that some of the bloody scratches were not from Ember but from the Claw itself. Riona was an amateur with the blade, and could injure herself just as easily as she could wound him. Yet, she could not drop it to pull her own sword.
Dougal countered her attack with a flurry of blows, but try as he might, he could not find a way past the Claw's four blades. While Riona might not know how to handle an ungue, Dougal stood before her beaten and exhausted, the blood from his fingers making his blade hard to handle. She'd always been the better soldier, and that edge proved enough to keep him from hurting her.
Dougal backed up again, giving himself some more room from the Claw's blades and hoping that Riona might trip on the uneven paving stones when coming after him.
The blades of the Claw flashed at him again and again, and it was all he could do to mount a decent defense against them. Every time he thought he might see a space for a counterattack, Riona closed it in an instant. Sometimes this meant cutting her own flesh with one of the other blades, but she didn't seem to care. He kept backing up slowly, buying himself time with space, circling as he moved, putting her between the pit and himself.
"Just walk away, Dougal!" Riona looked straight into his eyes. "I'll let you go for old time's sake. I'm taking the Claw either way. You don't have to die." She launched herself at him. Dougal turned just in time to parry her attack. One of the Claw's blades got past his guard and ripped a shallow channel in his leg.
Furiously, Riona pressed the attack, slicing and stabbing at Dougal with abandon. He stumbled backward over the stones, deflecting the most lethal of her blows. She was forcing him to move now, spinning him so his back was to the pit and his form was framed in the light of the Foefire.
He was the perfect target, which is what he wanted to be.
Riona let out a guttural cry that might have been a curse or a threat or a prayer, and charged him, her blades lashing out and laying open his left shoulder. That's when Dougal struck, despite the pain, at Riona's heart. She managed to half parry the blow, and it slashed through her side rather than into her chest.